Go For Launch: Mission 6: Orbit! Sunday 19 June 5pm EDT/9pm UTC Part A, 8pm EDT/midnight UTC Part B

[Dman979]

22 hours ago, NathanKell said:

Now that the 1.1.3 rush (and various setup things on the next round) have passed, time to get this rolling again.

 

The next major things for us to try are desired-orbit satellite launches leading up to, eventually, a moon shot. This requires a fair amount of guidance work, since we will need closed-loop rather than open-loop guidance, and for the moon shot either heavy precalculation (the historic route) or on-the-fly maneuver determination for the injection burn.

Like I recommended to the RSP, I suggest taking a look at @Reddy's PEGAS code. It's not fully implemented yet, but it's impressive.

[NathanKell]

@Dman979 yes, PEG is a fine algorithm for achieving a desired first-burn apogee and perigee. However, it does not cover the use of unguided kick stages, it does not handle (AFAIK) coasts to defined points then kicks to finalize orbits, and it _certainly_ does not, AFAIK, cover using that kick to perform a lunar transfer. I mean, the whole point of it is managing things by varying pitch.

[Dman979]

3 hours ago, NathanKell said:

@Dman979 yes, PEG is a fine algorithm for achieving a desired first-burn apogee and perigee. However, it does not cover the use of unguided kick stages, it does not handle (AFAIK) coasts to defined points then kicks to finalize orbits, and it _certainly_ does not, AFAIK, cover using that kick to perform a lunar transfer. I mean, the whole point of it is managing things by varying pitch.

I think that it's designed to put you at a specific point with a specific velocity. If you tell the program what the final velocity you want it to have at a point is, so long as the rocket is physically capable of getting there, it will get there.

That also works for your parking orbit, too. If you know what the parking orbit altitude you want is (+/- up to 10km), you should be able to figure out your orbital velocity. From there, you can precalculate the node, and then input that into the orbit on the stock KSP node system.

If you do decide to go the semi-historical route, I suggest adding a few modcourse correction burns, too.

[NathanKell]

Yep, we either need code to figure out what those state vectors need to be, or we need someone to precompute them (and have a historically-high chance of missing the moon). That's where this whole thing started.

[adamgerd]

I have a question. Is it too late to join and what are the requirements?

[soundnfury]

10 hours ago, adamgerd said:

I have a question. Is it too late to join and what are the requirements?

Fairly sure people can still join.  Some requirements are:

• Have a microphone, so you can join in on the mission control net.  (It's possible to make do with a phone; we use Discord.)
• Already have some experience playing with RSS and RO.

It's also helpful to have some relevant technical skills, e.g. doing calculations or writing kOS guidance code, but there are many rôles that don't require this.

[Jovus]

cast 'mon un nilaz necro thread' (serious kudos if you get the reference)

 

Is this still a done thing? If not, is there a plan for another (e.g. in 1.2)? I'm seriously interested, as someone who both loves RP-0 and has little to no time to play KSP myself.

[soundnfury]

On 27/09/2016 at 6:36 PM, Jovus said:

Is this still a done thing?

I believe so: GFL is Not Dead!  We just went on hiatus for a while because we lacked sufficiently good guidance algorithms for the next big objective, lunar probes.  But now I've taught KONRAD how to do it, so if we can wake @NathanKell from his dread sleep at R'lyeh, we should be go for relaunch…

Ia! Ia! NathanKell fhtagn!

[Uace24]

What is the next big objective? If you dont mind me asking. 

 

[ZooNamedGames]

Take it from me as the leader of RSP; running this kind of thing is difficult. Really really difficult. It's multimanaging multiple people, timezones, hardware and software. As I've seen, you can get the perfect launch opportunity which you spent months and months pouring into and still come out with something unimaginable scrubbing your launch. This isn't just "will people join", this also comes down to "will KSP cooperate?". As I've said to the rest of the RSP team, if it weren't for the fact we need the KSP community, we'd easily consider making our own simulator or use something like orbiter instead as it would require less modifying and risking the possibilities of failure due to crashes/bugs.

So I bid this group good luck.

Edited December 5, 2016 by ZooNamedGames

[soundnfury]

On 04/12/2016 at 4:55 PM, Uace24 said:

What is the next big objective? If you dont mind me asking. 

AFAIK the plan is to do a few satellite launches into desired orbits (which will require a bit more precision than our BlueSky 2A is capable of with its high-terminal-acceleration kick stage; we will probably have to develop the controllable probe core), mop up all the low orbit science, research the next tier of rocket motors, and start shooting for lunar flybys / impactors.

Presumably the people who like planes will be doing something aerodynamic in the meantime.

On 05/12/2016 at 1:03 AM, ZooNamedGames said:

Take it from me as the leader of RSP; running this kind of thing is difficult.

IMHO the hard part is the 'herding cats' to get enough people all committed to doing something at an agreed-upon time.  That's why I keep pinging NK, because he's good at that and I'm not.  But I think he's currently busy trying to make RO a thing in 1.2.x, and presumably also having a life outside of KSP.

[ZooNamedGames]

30 minutes ago, soundnfury said:

AFAIK the plan is to do a few satellite launches into desired orbits (which will require a bit more precision than our BlueSky 2A is capable of with its high-terminal-acceleration kick stage; we will probably have to develop the controllable probe core), mop up all the low orbit science, research the next tier of rocket motors, and start shooting for lunar flybys / impactors.

Presumably the people who like planes will be doing something aerodynamic in the meantime.

IMHO the hard part is the 'herding cats' to get enough people all committed to doing something at an agreed-upon time.  That's why I keep pinging NK, because he's good at that and I'm not.  But I think he's currently busy trying to make RO a thing in 1.2.x, and presumably also having a life outside of KSP.

Yeah. Granted having a passionately determined crew helps. I'll be honest- @Uace24, @CliftonM And @Florid Monkey are the biggest members of the team as they're almost always actively discussing a future mission and developing them. Which is a massive aid. 

Have you considered opening a group Skype/steam/or discord group? Someplace you can all trade info instantaneously? 

[Fenisse]

20 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Have you considered opening a group Skype/steam/or discord group? Someplace you can all trade info instantaneously? 

We do have a Discord channel, though we haven't talked lately (read: something like half a year). Personally, I left gaming and KSP four months ago, not because of any reason in particular, I just lost interest and also school. However, I still kept looking at the forums, helped people from time to time, wrote this post, but nothing more serious. It's probable that I'll be back with KSP soon, once either we resume GFL, or I find inspiration to finish/start researching stuff for a new AAR.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Fenisse
LOLOL how do I grammar

[Redneck]

deleted post

 

 

Edited December 24, 2016 by Redneck
projects dead obviously